This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
H. F. Baker, “Biographical Notice,” in theCollected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester, vol. 4, p. xxii.
Karl Pearson,The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton, vol. IIIA (Cambridge, England, 1930), p. 248.
Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the University of Virginia: Session of 1841-42 (Charlottesville, n.d.), pp. 12–13.
David Eugene Smith and Jekuthiel Ginsburg,A History of Mathematics in America Before 1900 (Chicago, 1934), p. 74. Also of. Lao G. Simons, “The Influence of French Mathematicians at the End of the Eighteenth Century upon the Teaching of Mathematics in American Colleges, ”Isis, vol. 15 (1931): 110-111, 119, 120. Even in faraway Vermont the textbooks of the French mathematicians were being used in 1828. Julian Ira Lindsay,Tradition Looks Forward: The University of Vermont: A History 1971-1904 (Burlington, Vt., 1954), pp. 273–274.
“Professor Sylvester’s Arrival,”Collegian (published by the Students of the University of Virginia), vol. 4, no. 11 (November, 1841): 62.
“In Virginia at this time the question of slavery was a subject of bitter contention, and Sylvester had a horror of slavery. The outcome was his almost immediate return”; Baker, “Biographical Notice,” p. xxiii. “The delight of us students, however, was the rare reading of a paper by old Professor Sylvester.” When, forty years previously, he had taught at the University of Virginia, “he aroused the hatred of some of the older students by his open criticism of the ‘domestic institution’ of slavery. Two of them declared they would ‘get’ the ‘semi-idiotic calculating boy’ at the first opportunity. Sylvester bought a sword cane.” Allen Kerr Bond,When the Hopkins Came to Baltimore (Baltimore, 1928), p. 37. According to the article in the famous eleventh edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannica, Sylvester “remained only six months” at Virginia ... for certain views on slavery, strongly held and injudiciously expressed, entailed unpleasant consequences, and necessitated his return to England.Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911), s.v. 19a. Raymond Clare Archibald, “Unpublished Letters of James Joseph Sylvester and other new information concerning his Life and Work”;Osiris, vol. I (1936), p. 98.
Carolyn Eisele,Studies in the Scientific and Mathematical Philosophy of Charles S. Peirce, ed. R. M. Martin (The Hague, 1979), p. 316. Halsted inspired such men as L. Dickson, R. L. Moore, and H. B. Fine to their notable mathematical careers. David Eugene Smith, “George Bruce Halsted,” inDictionary of American Biography (New- York, 1932), vol. 4, pp. 163-165. Roberto Bonola,Non- Euclidean Geometry: A Critical and Historical Study of Its Development, trans. H. S. Carslaw, 2d ed. (LaSalle, I11., 1938), pp. 44, 86, 93, 100, 139.
Was the “intimate friend” of Dr. Dabney a student or a professor? If he had been a student, one might expect that Dr. Dabney would have said “a fellow student, an intimate friend of mine.” Probably it was a professor whose identity Dabney felt he should not divulge. Sylvester, moreover, might not otherwise have acted so promptly on the advice. We are, however, in the realm of conjecture. Sylvester’s “resignation” was possibly transmitted to his colleagues by this adviser.
George Bruce Halsted, “Original Research and Creative Authorship, the Essence of University Teaching,”Science, n.s., 1 (Feb. 22, 1895), p.2055. Also cf. George Bruce Halsted, “De Morgan to Sylvester,“Monist 10 (1900): 189.
George Bruce Halsted, “Sylvester at Hopkins,”Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine 4 (1916): 186.
Several long passages from the relevant minutes of the faculty of the University of Virginia were published in R. C. Yates, “Sylvester at the University of Virginia,”American Mathematical Monthly 44 (1937): 193–201.
According to the university records, Ballard was born in 1828, and was thus not more than fourteen years old at this time. Probably the date was a misprint for 1818.
The three remaining professors were presumably absent: John P. Emmet, professor of chemistry and materia medica; James L. Cabell, professor of anatomy and surgery; Henry St. George Tucker, professor of law.
Yates, “Sylvester at the University of Virginia,” p. 196.
Ibid., p. 197.
J. D. North, “James Joseph Sylvester,” inDictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 13 (New York, 1976), p. 217.
Yates, “Sylvester at the University of Virginia,” p. 197.
Ibid., pp. 197–198.
Ibid.
Minutes of the Faculty, University of Virginia, vol. 6, June 30, 1843, Manuscript Division, Alderman Library.
Minutes of the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, vol. 3 (1837-1853), pp. 71–72.
Bruce,History of the University of Virginia, vol. 3, p. 196; vol. I, pp. 159, 152, 144, 234.
Harvey C. Lehman,Age and Achievement (Princeton, 1953), pp. 291, 180–183.
The council of the Royal Society deliberated whether to choose Cayler or Sylvester as the recipient of the Copley Medal, its highest honor. Galton, a member of the council at the time, tells how they were guided by the opinions of “the eminent mathematicians” into choosing Sylvester first. Francis Galton,Memories of My Life (New York, 1909), pp. 71–72.
Hugh Hawkins,Pioneer: A History of the Johns Hopkins University, 1874-1889 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1960), p. 158.
Charles S. Peirce, Review ofThe Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester, vol. 1,Nation, 70, no. 2045 (Sept. 8, 1904): 204.
Halsted, “Sylvester at Hopkins,” p. 188.
Smith and Ginsburg,History of Mathematics in America Before 1900, pp. 104, 127.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This article is a shortened version of an article titled “America’s First Jewish Professor: James Joseph Sylvester at the University of Virginia” that appeared inAmerican Jewish Archives, Vol. 36, No. 2, 1984.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Feuer, L.S. Sylvester in Virginia. The Mathematical Intelligencer 9, 13–19 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03025892
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03025892